Champions League Final 11/12 Summary

After a remarkable night of football seen by millions across the world many Chelsea fans will inevitably be waking up with very sore heads. The Champions League final didn't, for the majority of regulation time anyway, provide much of a spectacle. What happened after the 80th minute however  was football at its most delightful.

Bayern managed 43 shots across the course of the evening, by even their standards 43 is a ludicrous amount. Bayern averaged 15.7 shots per match in the 11/12 domestic season so they were gifted over 2.5 times more chances than normal. Frank Lampard was the Chelsea player who had the most touches of the ball with 97, which was bettered by 4 Bayern Munich players. With 56% of ball possession (with 44% of the games total play occurring within the Chelsea half) and a pass accuracy of 87% (only Barcelona averaged higher than this in all of Europe's top 5 leagues last season), Bayern were certainly on top. But if you watched the game you don't need the statistics to tell you that Chelsea were on the back foot. It was, defensively anyway, a glorious performance from Chelsea. Their shape, as shown by their average positions across the night below, was nigh on flawless.

On only one occasion can I recall Chelsea being caught out seriously due to poor positioning, and that was a defensive lapse by Ashley Cole (and possibly Malouda) to allow Mueller a free header at the back post to score Bayern's goal. Of the 43 attempts on goal by the Munich team 22 were blocked by Chelsea players. 14 of the 22 blocks were by either Bosingwa, Cahill, Luiz or Cole, who performed impressively whilst having to remain disciplined all night.

Chelsea were aided by poor finishing from the "home" side though. Of the 21 shots which managed to make it past a Chelsea player only 7 were on target. The shooting of Arjen Robben was particularly poor, with only 5 of his attempted 15 shots testing the glorious Petr Cech. Mario Gomes had an equally as poor night, penned by many as the man who would win the final for Bayern, he was unable to test Cech all night. In total Gomez managed 5 shots all night and none on target, a far cry from the form she showed in the rest of the Champions League this season. Were Bayern Munich to have finished as they normally would have then it goes without saying that a different name would be on the trophy.

In the 53rd minute Bayern did have the ball in the back of the Chelsea net, but Franck Ribery adjudged to have been offside, a decision which replays suggested was correct, but tight none the less. Were the goal to have stood Chelsea would have been aggrieved, but worse decisions have been made in big games this season (Juan Mata'a ghost goal in the FA cup semi-final against Spurs a brilliant example).

In the 83rd minute Thomas Mueller broke the deadlock when he was afforded a free header at Chelsea's back post. Similarly to how Jamie Mackie scored against City in the boring Premier League final day Mueller headed the ball into the ground and it looped over Petr Cech and into the net. The joy in Mueller's celebration was obvious to see, he thought that he had just won the Champions League final for his team.

When Didier Drogba headed in the equaliser in the 88th minute it appeared, as Gary Neville said, "written in the stars". After the goal Munich did seem flustered for the rest of the first 90 minutes plus injury time. They had already sent on the man mountain Van Buyten to assist them in seeing out the game, showing that they didn't expect Chelsea to sucker punch them.

Going into extra time it still seemed that if the game were to be settled from open play it would be Bayern Munich lifting the trophy. It was simply a case of could Chelsea hold on? And Drogba seemed to answer that question for us after 5 minutes. Having given away a penalty in their semi-final second leg Drogba once again felled an opposition attacker. It seemed certain that a player of Arjen Robben's technique and quality would manage to do what Messi had failed in the semi and score the penalty. But a combination of a poor hit by Robben and a correct guess by Cech kept the score level. At this point I was thinking "if there is a god, he is a Chelsea fan". The rest of extra time passed without incident, meaning Chelsea had to better their performance in the 2008 Moscow final penalty shoot out and they would become the 5th English team to lift the EC/CL trophy.

Just as they had in the match Chelsea went the hard route through the penalty shoot out. After Mata's missed penalty it seemed once again inevitable that Bayern Munich would win the trophy. Alas fantastic penalties by Luiz, Lampard and Cole meant that the miss by Olic put the two teams level with one spot kick left each. One peculiar moment during the penalty shoot out was Manuel Neur stepping up to take a penalty. Whilst Bayern's reserve keeper Butt is renown as a penalty taking goal keeper Neur has no such reputation, none the less he held his nerve and despatched the penalty expertly. Then a rare penalty miss from 27 year old Schweinsteiger, who has been at Bayern Munich since 1998, allowed Drogba to score the final penalty for Chelsea and seal the win for the first ever Champions League winning team from London.

It was a night which defied all logic. Every statistic suggests that Chelsea should have lost by a cricket score, but on the night the stars aligned in such a way that allowed the underdogs (written off by Kelvin pre-match) to lift the trophy. That raises the question, if the 6th best team from England are the best team in Europe and the top two English teams aren't even able to progress to the business end of the Europa League, what on earth will happen next year? But for now it is time to catch my breath after a truly incredible end to the season in preparation for Euro 2012.

By Alex Pointon

Follow me on twitter - @Jewfrochamp

All statistics and the fantastic graphic are from whoscored.com

Swansea & Barcelona: How Similar Are They?

The comparison between Barcelona and the club they try to emulate, Swansea, has been done and done to death. Despite that, when I looked at the end of season figures I was startled to find out just how well Swansea performed. In many key areas they matched the big spending EPL clubs punch for punch. Swansea City's squad is currently valued at £60.5 million, which is a whole £10 million below the value of £70.5 million placed upon the squad of the EPL's worst club last term, Wolves. Only one EPL club has a squad which comes in at a price lower than Swansea's, and that is Norwich (who are only valued at a measly £47 million). But they are a success story to be told in another post.

The two trademark features of Barcelona's style of play, to the relatively untrained eye anyway, are insane levels of possession and the much revered short passing game.

Passing

In the 11/12 Liga BBVA season Barcelona completed 23,848 passes of 26,942 attempted passes, to put into perspective Real Madrid only attempted 20,130 passes. So, rather predictably Barcelona achieved the highest past success in their league with 88.5%, 3.5% superior to the next most accurate passers Real Madrid. Now to show you Swansea's passing statistics. With 20,794 passes attempted last season Swansea attempted the second highest number of passes in the league, only 70 passes below the highest passing EPL team, Manchester City. Swansea completed 17,813 of their passes and therefore attained a passing success of 85.7%. Only Manchester City bettered this, and that was only by 0.2%.

Possession

Barcelona managed a whopping 69.3% average possession last season, 10.5% greater than Real Madrid, the obvious second in the list. 33% of Barca's possession was within the opposition half (the highest in their league), 47% was in the middle third of the pitch (also the highest in their league) and only 19% of Barcelona possession was within the restraints of their own defensive third (which is the lowest in their league). Swansea had the third highest average possession in the EPL with 57.6%, only 2% lower than Arsenal who sit atop of the possession chart with 59.6%. Barcelona enjoyed the highest level of their possession within the opposition third when compared to the rest of their league. In comparison to this Swansea had 31% of their possession between their own half, the second highest in the EPL. 46% of Swansea's play was in the middle of the pitch, the highest managed in the league. Hence finally, and pivotally to the point I will conclude on, only 22% of Swansea's possession was in the opposition half. This was the lowest in the entire league.

Conclusion

From the passing statistics it can be concluded, as far as I'm concerned anyway, that Swansea have definitely managed to adapt their passing game to the Premier League, as shown by their incredibly high passing accuracy (85.7%) and number of passes (especially only ever being topped by "rich clubs" with CL experience). Whilst Barcelona topped Swansea by 2.7%, Barcelona have a squad valued at £520 million. So for between an eighth and ninth of price of the Barcelona squad Swansea have managed to achieve percentage figures of a similar ilk to Barcelona's. Swansea haven't yet imitated the "pass the opposition to death" style made famous by Barcelona, shown by the fact that Swansea's number of passes attempted does not stand head and shoulders above the rest of the league in the same way that Barcelona's does. None the less Swansea have certainly made admirable strides in the right direction by placing themselves amongst the best teams of the "passes attempted" list. The 59.7% possession achieved by Swansea shows that, just as the passing statistics do, that Swansea are achieving the closest style attainable within their budget. Budget being the key factor in Swansea spending the lowest proportion of their possession within the opposition half. This demonstrates a key lack of penetration in the Swansea team. It is worth noting that teams such as Norwich, West Brom and Bolton are all within the top ten of proportion of their possession in the opposition half, so it is not a case of Swansea being a "lesser club" and thus not being able to achieve the level of penetration exhibited by Barcelona. It can be stated, with great certainty on my part, that no club team will ever be able to take a group of players as cheaply assembled as the Swansea squad and play as similarly to Barcelona. Brendan Rogers has shown great faith in his players, and I can only see them improving. Testament to his commitment to playing football "the right way" is the fact that Brendan Rogers is accompanying the Spain national team to Euro 2012 in order to observe.

By Alex Pointon

All statistics in this post are courtesy of either www.whoscored.com or www.transfermarkt.co.uk